What are some projects you are planning on doing, but haven't gotten around to making them?

Here are a few of mine: -a dog feeder with a 12 volt motor, still working out the details-a thin plastic door that rolls up like a carpet above the doorway when someone approaches-a robotic frog that fires bullet blanks in its legs, propelling it over homes (basically a frog with guns for legs)- I've been too afraid to test it so far.-a series of small robots that work together with Rf communication to bring me a drink from the fridge (one goes to the fridge, another opens the door, another releases the drink).

focalist

Big Oil, you have just gained 10,000 mad scientist points for the frog. Bravo. Freaking awesome. I bow to you, sir.

The new Budweiser (and other) aluminum bottles are perfect pressure vessel projectiles for a rapid-fire water rocket, or just a recycling mortar. I've got a compressor, I'm thinking about an easy and fast nozzle rig that can be screwed onto your empty beer bottle, which then can fire it mortar-style into a recycling bin (useful) or pressurized like the old "water bomb" toy rockets we all had and send it far far away to be mined by my great great grandkids for the aluminum. Because of the shape and the construction, I am willing to bet those "bottles" can take a TON of pressure, probably far more than any nozzle I'd make could hold. They have integrity of the metal unlike cans, and the bottle "lip" begs for some type of easy to construct retention ring and nozzle. More to come.

More reasonable and coming soon: an RF linked shutter release system for wildlife photography. Pretty simple, really, just have to get to doing it. I want to be able to place a basic sensor (like a photoresistor, a mic/preamp, PIR sensor) a reasonable distance away and have it wait for threshhold conditions then release the camera shutter or trigger the flash. The only part of this I've not done before is the RF link, I think I am going to buy one of the 433kHz link "kits" you can get for about three bucks. Should be fine, it's not like the events I am looking for are over in microseconds-- the fastest would likely be the approach of hummingbirds to a feeder.. seconds if not longer to react. I am going to do a wired one first, in fact I may get to that later in the week, as the weather is terrible. It's a no brainer of a project, but the outcome should be good anyway..

A simple board for use with typical LCD displays (like the 1602 standard, etc) that convert them to either SPI or UART so they don't take so darn many pins. I want something I can slap between Arduino and those LCD's and just make it simpler. I think we all would like one of these from time to time...probably going to require a few library changes or making a fresh one from scratch..

amacmullen14

A simple board for use with typical LCD displays (like the 1602 standard, etc) that convert them to either SPI or UART so they don't take so darn many pins. I want something I can slap between Arduino and those LCD's and just make it simpler. I think we all would like one of these from time to time...probably going to require a few library changes or making a fresh one from scratch..

it's been done... http://www.sparkfun.com/products/258They've also got a kit one that's atmega328-based, so it's arduino-compatible.

A simple board for use with typical LCD displays (like the 1602 standard, etc) that convert them to either SPI or UART

There was also an I2C+serial one done a couple of years back. I helped develop the Arduino library for it. Not sure whether it's still available, and I don't have the URL bookmarked on my work PC. He also sold an I2C multi-channel servo controller, which might help narrow a google search. However, I don't recommend it for use with I2C: he had problems with buffer overruns tryng to keep up with I2C (seemed to work okay at 9600 baud serial) that caused dropped characters and garbled command strings.

There's someone offering an I2C LCD controller in bare DIP form on ebay. In the UK, as I recall. Costs about US$4, plus a little less than that for shipping to the US.

One project I've had on the "someday" list for a while is to take a minimal Arduino like the RBBB, and make it into an SPI or I2C slave that would run a graphic LCD (which really suck up the I/O pins. And memory). The essence of the idea is to put all the resource-intensive parts of the interface on the slave. Then have a "stubbed" version of the GLCD library on the master that would just send commands and parameters to the slave when you do a GLCD call. It would be slower than having the GLCD connected directly, and might have to sacrifice a few library functions if they poke too deeply into the guts of the LCD or driver internals. But it would have the advantage of being otherwise completely compatible with a direct connection, and would make a lot of projects that need more I/O pins easier. Or even move them into the "do-able" category.

Here's another one from two years back that I haven't gotten around to: An embroidery machine (typically retails for $500 - $700 U.S.). It's basically a sewing machine that draws pictures with thread. All you would need is a two-axis cnc style setup mounted under a normal sewing machine, with a sensor mounted on the sewing machine to keep track of the needle moving up and down. Right now the embroidery companies are ripping off poor old ladies with their expensive machines.

All my projects are in the idea phase. I'll envision something, figure out how I want to do it, even acquire parts and code up test versions of the various routines, and then I'm off on a tangent on something else, or maybe there's just one thing I want to add, but I'm spending money elsewhere at the moment. One weekend, I'll get a wild hair and just sit down and build one of them to completion. Of course, since I have but one Uno, if I do that, I'll need to acquire another Arduino of some sort to proceed with fiddling about. Maybe I should just order a couple more to have around. I do have some ATMega ICs sitting here too, so the other 'idea phase' is to build any of these things on a dedicated board. Hmmm.

... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could somedayfacilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier

In the interest of being cheap, I want to do away with the mechanical water meter and timer on my water softener. I want to use Arduino to control the valves, cycle timing, and cycle rate --by measuring water usage-- and convert it to electronic control.